A still photo taken from a video posted online that reportedly shows a terrorist simply known as 'The American.' Fox News is reporting that the man shown grew up in Daphne, Ala., as Omar Hammami and is now operating out of Somalia under the name Abu Mansour al-Amriki.

MOBILE, Ala. -- A former University of South Alabama student who once expressed horror at the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been charged in a secret indictment with aiding terrorists, according to a Fox News report.

Citing a confidential source, the cable news outlet reported on its Web site that Abu Mansour al-Amriki has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Mobile on a charge of providing material support to terrorists.

Representatives from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Mobile declined comment Friday.

Al-Amriki, 25, was on the Arab-language network Al-Jazeera two years ago as part of a report on an al-Qaida-linked Muslim
organization in Somalia called al-Shabaab.

Al-Jazeera, according to the Fox News story, identified al-Amriki as a military trainer who had been dubbed "The American."

Before moving to Somalia and taking on his battlefield name, al-Amriki grew up near Daphne, just east of Mobile, under his given name, Omar Hammami. By all accounts, he lived a normal suburban life and even spoke out against terrorism. He left Daphne High School, where he participated in a Model United Nations program, after his junior year.

Shortly after Muslim terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, Hammami, then a University of South Alabama student, told the student newspaper that he was shocked and found it difficult to believe a Muslim could have done it.

University officials said Hammami was like any other student. His father, Shafik Hammami, works as an engineer for the Alabama Department of Transportation in Mobile. He also heads a Muslim school in Mobile.

News accounts over the past two years place al-Amriki in the middle of a holy war against Somalia's government. A June article in The Economist described him as one of al-Shabaab's bomb experts.

The Associated Press in April quoted Mohamed Muqtar, a former al-Shabaab fighter in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, as saying that he had met al-Amriki in 2007 in the Islamist stronghold of Kismayo.

(IntelCenter photo)This still photo is taken from examiner.com. The Web site identifies the man at right as Abu Mansour al-Amriki. Fox News has reported that al-Amriki is a former Daphne High School and University of South Alabama student whose given name is Omar Hammami. Fox News also reports that al-Amriki has been secretly charged in Mobile with aiding terrorists.

"This is the same man, the American man, I saw in Kismayo two years ago when I was being trained there," he said. "This man was training us how to make land mines and explosives."

Al-Shabaab, which means "The Youth" in Arabic, first came to prominence in 2006 after neighboring Ethiopia invaded Somalia, according to a Washington-based think tank.

"It's a very fragmented organization," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the African program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Although unlikely to take control of the Somali government, she said, "their best hope is to simply act as a spoiler so that no other group can effectively govern."

Al-Shabaab has succeeded in attracting at least a small number of American recruits, according to news reports. In Minneapolis last month, one man who spent time in an al-Shabaab training camp pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his whereabouts. The organization reportedly has posted several videotaped messages by al-Amriki on Web sites friendly to extremist causes. At first, his face was hidden by cloth wrap, but beginning in March, he has appeared uncovered in messages.

The March message, which a caption indicated had been filmed the previous July, shows Al-Amriki calling for Muslim jihadists around the world to join the fight against the Somali government, like two young Muslims who recently had been killed in an ambush.

"The only reason we're staying here away from our families, away from the cities, away from ice, candy bars, all these other things, is because we're waiting to meet with the enemy," he said. He continued: "One of the things that we seek for in this life of ours is to die as a martyr. So the fact that we got two martyrs is nothing more than a victory in and of itself."

The half-hour video features an amateur English-language rap soundtrack and purports to show an operation against Ethiopian troops in Somalia.

In an audiotaped message posted on the Web in July, al-Amriki blasted President Barack Obama's high-profile speech in June calling for a "new beginning" with the Muslim world. He ridiculed Obama's "magic of charisma" and warned of more attacks against U.S. interests.

"Despite the fact that you have been ... forced to at least pretend to extend your hand in peace to the Muslims, we cannot and shall not extend our hands," he said in the message. "Rather, we shall extend to you our swords, until you leave our lands."

Al-Amriki demanded to know how Obama could send greetings to the Muslim world while "thousands of Muslims are being detained in your facilities," while the U.S. continues to bomb "our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan," and while the country supports Israel - the "most vicious and evil nation in this modern era."

Al-Amriki acknowledged a change in tone from the Bush administration, saying, "The Cowboy flavor has melted away. And instead, we have a new apologetic and humble approach."

But he suggested the change was merely one of tactics, not substance.

"The reality is that he is only changing his strategy from a short-term win to a long-term victory," he said.

(Staff Reporters Alex Pappas and Sean Reilly and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)